{"id":291637,"date":"2025-11-18T02:33:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T02:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/291637\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T02:33:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T02:33:10","slug":"townsville-city-council-did-not-comply-with-public-tender-process-audit-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/291637\/","title":{"rendered":"Townsville City Council did not comply with public tender process, audit finds"},"content":{"rendered":"

Townsville City Council (TCC) breached Queensland regulations by directly appointing a contractor without calling for tenders, an external audit has found.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Under Queensland’s Local Government Regulation 2012, a local government cannot enter a contract worth $200,000 or more in a financial year or over the term of the contract, without inviting written tenders first.<\/p>\n

A Queensland Audit Office (QAO) report released on November 13 found that a council employee who recommended and approved the contract, based the recommendation on incorrect costings.<\/p>\n

“The estimated total contract value was based on one year of expenditure only, despite the contract term being three years,” the QAO wrote.<\/p>\n

“The final contract amount also exceeded both the quoted amount and the approved recommendation to award.”\"Exterior<\/p>\n

Townsville City Council is providing refresher training to staff after the procurement breach.\u00a0 (ABC North Qld: Chloe Chomicki)<\/p>\n

It comes 12 months after the council overpaid departing executives<\/a> despite citing financial challenges that led to the council hiking rates, cutting subsidies and doubling parking fees.<\/p>\n

In September, it was revealed half of TCC’s projects in the three years leading up to 2024 were, on average, 26 per cent over budget.<\/a><\/p>\n

The audit office said the failure to comply with legislative procurement thresholds undermined transparency, value for money and the integrity of the council procurement process.<\/p>\n

The same audit found TCC did not perform independent cross-checks on related party disclosures of interest forms completed by councillors and key management personnel.<\/p>\n

“The process currently relies entirely on employees and elected members to self-declare related interests,” the report read.<\/p>\n

TCC told the audit office it would implement a more robust process to review and verify related party declarations.<\/p>\n

TCC has an annual budget of more than $900 million, but it will soon become a billion-dollar budget as the largest city in northern Australia continues to grow.<\/p>\n

Council distrust<\/p>\n

Townsville-based James Cook University policy and politics lecturer Liam Moore said the TCC audit could further challenge the public’s trust in the local government.<\/p>\n

The electorate overwhelmingly voted for change at a mayoral by-election at the weekend, which saw former KAP state MP Nick Dametto claim victory.<\/p>\n

“Events like this are not ideal, and they might provoke a little more distrust from the electorate in what they think of Townsville City Council,” Dr Moore said.<\/p>\n

“[The electorate] wants to see \u2026 these public institutions complying with the rules, spending money wisely and [with] the right processes in place.”<\/p>\n

In a statement, a TCC spokesperson said the contract breach was identified by the council before a further purchase order and the council notified the audit office.<\/p>\n

“The scope of works was able to be redefined and the final contract amount was approximately $120,000,” the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Townsville City Council (TCC) breached Queensland regulations by directly appointing a contractor without calling for tenders, an external…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":291638,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,51595,63,99,3895,167756,133111,26673,16570,125124,6649,81634],"class_list":["post-291637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-audit","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-contract","tag-disclosure","tag-distrust","tag-north-queensland","tag-regulation","tag-tender","tag-townsville","tag-townsville-city-council"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291637\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/291638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}